After a modest two-game winning streak, the Senators were outclassed by the Devils on Friday night.
Consistently inconsistent. That's an acceptable way to describe the 2023-24 Ottawa Senators (and maybe their past three seasons as well).
The embers of a small two-game win streak were stomped out by the New Jersey Devils, who defeated the Senators 6-2 on Friday night. Jesper Bratt led the way with a goal and three assists, while goalie Nico Daws won his first NHL appearance since April of 2022.
Daws allowed two goals on 27 shots, while Ottawa's Joonas Korpisalo gave up six on 30. The Sens are now 2-3-0 under interim head coach Jacques Martin and continue to make the same mistakes they did under D.J. Smith. Meanwhile, the Devils simply played a faster game with better puck skill and management.
“I don't think we were very effective," Martin said, flexing his flair for the understatement. "We didn't play to our game. We had a lot of frustrations tonight. We took a step back.”
Ottawa's goals came from Drake Batherson and Jacob Bernard-Docker, who both did their best to try and explain the inconsistency.
"I think in this league, you can't get too high or too low," Bernard-Docker said. "I mean, you have a game every second day. So maybe that's a bit of our problem when we're winning right now. We're all excited, and when we lose, it's kind of the other way."
Batherson felt like they got away from what they were doing in their previous two games, both victories.
"I think we were a little cleaner the other two games breaking out in the neutral zone," Batherson said. "Just little things like making tape to tape passes and just a little better structured I think overall. And when we weren't structured obviously they capitalized on that (tonight) and scored a few goals.”
The night started well enough. The Senators opened the scoring at 9:47 of the first. Right after an ineffective Sens power play had expired, Brady Tkachuk fed a nice pass to Batherson, who waited out Daws and beat him low for his 14th goal of the season.
But then the Senators penalty killing struggles resurfaced.
Less than three minutes after his goal, Batherson was called for interference on Jack Hughes. Hughes immediately made the Sens pay. He took advantage of some loose defensive coverage, walked right up to the left faceoff dot, and beat Joonas Korpisalo five hole to tie the game at 1.
The Devils struck again on the power play with just eight seconds left in the period. After both Tim Stutzle and Ridly Greig failed on cleared attempts that would have ended the period, the Devils kept the zone, and Bratt fired home a snapshot to make it 2-1 New Jersey.
In the second period, right after Brady Tkachuk was stopped on a breakaway, the Devils extended their lead at 7:17. As Artem Zub was fumbling with a rim pass from Korpisalo, Dawson Mercer stole it from him and then was allowed to easily walk to the front of the net and beat Korpisalo upstairs.
Former 67 Tyler Toffoli then made it 4-1 Devils. As Stutzle flew out of the Sens' zone early, Vladimir Tarasenko turned the puck over in the corner. Bratt picked up the puck and gave it to Toffoli, who was left alone in front and one-timed it past Korpisalo.
The onslaught continued in the third with a familiar scene. Right after Daws stopped another breakaway – this one by Josh Norris on the power play – the Devils extended their lead when Brendan Smith stepped out of the penalty box for his own breakaway and scored his first goal in two years. Yes, two years.
Bernard-Docker scored late to cut the Devils' lead to 5-2, ramping a puck off Smith and past Daws. But Luke Hughes got that one back with a shot from the point that Korpisalo never saw – screened by two of his own players.
The Devils went 2/4 on the power play, while the Senators went 0/4 as their record dropped to 13-18-0 on the season.
With the Bell Capital Cup minor hockey tournament going on in town, the crowd at the CTC was as youthful as it was large (20,022). The home side needed to give them more reasons to get loud, but they'll try again on Sunday when Buffalo visits on New Year's Eve.